The Martial Unity

Chapter 4644: A Legacy of Power

He could tell that her affection for him had been snuffed. Pangs of pain flashed through his chest at the very thought, but he couldn’t blame her, because he understood.

One could only have unconditional love for that which one created.

For Rui, that was Ria and Project Water. The only things that, no matter what could possibly happen, he would love them forever. He loved Amare deeply, but... they were different people who had lived different lives that had ultimately intersected much later in either of their lives. She was not of his creation.

The same was true for her when it came to him. She loved him, but there were very few handful of things that could happen that could turn that love into hatred.

And he was looking at an Amare who had experienced such a future.

Her emotions were mixed. The many wonderful memories she had of him were juxtaposed with the unforgettable image of the blood-red suns within his eyes shining with blinding brightness. It was a horrifying trauma that had carved itself into her very body, metaphorically and even literally in a sense. He could sense that her corporeal consciousness in particular didn’t like him, while her conscious mind still had love for him.

"What are you going to do?" He asked, breaking the silence.

"...Leave behind a legacy of power before I disappear forever, I suppose," she said with a deep expression, before directing her eyes at him one last time. "...Promise me that you will never cause Ria pain."

Rui’s expression grew determined while his clear, transparent eyes were filled with conviction.

"I promise."

She stared at him for a few moments before her eyes softened, then turned in a particular direction with an expression of finality.

WHOOSH

She teleported away in the direction of the Kandrian manifold. Rui simply heaved a deep breath before sitting down on his bed. He already knew what she had gone to do, so he didn’t follow after her. Her intentions were a welcome relief to him. They needed all the power they could get their hands on for when the time came.

Still, he had so much to think about that it was very difficult to process. Even though the threat of the arakai was clearly the most pressing issue, he had so many more interesting things to think about.

The Armageddon of Time, the possibility of limitless phenomenological stamina, dual Transcendence through the corporeal consciousness, and time-travel Martial Art. Out of all of these, it was the dual Transcendence that was most within his reach. But unfortunately, even the easiest option was almost impossible in his eyes.

His corporeal consciousness was not the same as his consciousness; it didn’t have the same phenomenology. It had the phenomenology of a regular person or Martial Artist, rather. He suspected that the combination of her Martial Path, her deep talents, and cultivated attainments in bodily learning led to her corporeal consciousness developing the same uniform phenomenology as her conscious self. After all, even her Martial Embodiment was her memories. It was most likely just an incredible confluence of exceptional factors that led to an outcome that could be considered miraculous.

On top of that... he had shifted vessels many times. While Amare had had only one body, Esil had had many. This was the core reason he suspected that it was nearly impossible for him to achieve Corporeal Transcendence. Although he cloned his body with extremely high accuracy, he hadn’t taken efforts to preserve its phenomenology. This likely meant that any progress his corporeal consciousness made was reset each time he shifted vessels, especially after he became hyperdimensional.

"Goddammit, I’m going to have to start from scratch all over again, aren’t I?"

If that was the case, then it would take him decades to achieve dual Transcendence; it took him decades to reach Transcendence as a Martial Sage despite his exceptional rate of growth. It was such an absurdly difficult task to the point that just the time it took reduced the value of it in his eyes.

However, that was if he looked at dual Transcendence purely in terms of direct combat power. The truth was that he was actually eager to master dual Transcendence for another reason.

"It might be the key to finally and truly mastering Gigabrain."

It looked as if Amare hadn’t realized it, but from her memories, he could tell that future Rui’s corporeal consciousness had actually been resisting Gigabrain, especially when Ria had appeared.

Part of the reason why Ria had managed to kill him was that all of his restorative, healing, regenerative abilities had been completely shut down. Even something as basic as accelerated coagulation to stop bleeding had been completely reversed.

That wasn’t just his conscious love for Ria fighting back.

It had also been his corporeal consciousness. Together, they had sabotaged his trance state just enough to allow Ria to land a killing blow.

The reason his corporeal consciousness couldn’t do more was that it was simply too weak, compared to his Gigabrain technique. It was powerful in general, certainly. It was a whole Realm of power after all, allowing a level of efficiency and bodily mastery that had never been possible before.

However, Gigabrain was on a whole other level. It was even more powerful than before when combined with Transcendence. There was no way his corporeal consciousness could fight back against Transcendence.

"Unless you also become Transcendent," he told his corporeal consciousness, who stirred at the idea. "That way, you can shackle Transcendence. In fact, this might be the key to fully controlling Gigabrain without any consequences."

That was perhaps a bit too optimistic, but at the very least, he would have the ability to deactivate Gigabrain. That state of mind was sustained by consuming all the power of his body, redirected entirely to his brain. His corporeal consciousness could undo that bodily state by hampering its demanding needs and returning his body to normal.

That way he could use Gigabrain, go berserk against his enemies, but the moment he began hurting normal people, it could be turned off.

"That alone would be a huge improvement; it would completely change the game!" His ethereal eyes lit up with excitement.

In truth, as horrifying as the prevented future was, it was more exciting. He just didn’t want to appear shameless before a traumatized future Amare.

RUMBLE

At that moment, ripples emanated through the information dimension as he sensed two occurrences of a familiar phenomenon.

The breakthrough to Transcendence.